Five men Daniel has loved
by rebeccavoy
Summary: written for lj: sg1 five things


**Title:** Five men Daniel has loved

**Rating:** G

**Spoilers: **none

**Summary:** written for lj: sg1_five_things

**Author's Note:** sg1_five_things

**Date: **14/09/09

**Disclaimer:** Stargate doesn't belong to me, but I'm happy to trade for them

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**1. **

His father had been tall, Daniel remembered, taller than his mother, or even his grandfather. He had long hair that flopped over onto the round glasses covering his eyes and lightly calloused fingers that were almost always wrapped around the pages of a book, or his own small hand. He had a soft voice that told the best stories, tales of the gods and their control over the mortals beneath them. And Daniel had loved him, fiercely.

This love had grown intensely over the years, following him through his adolescence and fervent higher education. But now, as he looked at his own floppy haired, bespectacled image in the mirror, he wondered if it his father, or simply the idea of him, that he loved more.

**2. **

It was in college that a boy first caught Daniel's eye. He wasn't beautiful, or handsome in any traditional sense, but Daniel found him intoxicating all the same. He was an English major who had taken the class on Archaeological Practice on a lark and, at first glance, appeared the kind of student who sat, laconic and disinterested, at the back of the class. It was several weeks into the semester, however, that he spoke up, shattering this illusion and capturing Daniel's attention.

He had little patience for the reverential manner in which the professor the discussed the crumbling artefacts, and even less for his eager would-be-protégées, Daniel amongst them. Yet he spoke with a practiced voice which, if not exactly passionate about the subject matter, was clear, informed, and well used to being agreed with.

His words, so casually confident, infuriated the ever-careful Daniel. But the glee in his eyes whenever he entered into any debate entranced him. Daniel was fixated on his face, his voice, his impertinent but intelligent arguments. He loved him beyond reason or control.

It was the only class in which Daniel ever received a B.

**3. **

Daniel was a talented linguist, speaking many languages with ease. Over the past few years, he had added yet one more language to his repertoire: that of scorn and derision. It was an easy one to learn, Daniel had discovered, it had been clearly visible in the eyes of all his peers as they pushed him and his theories out of the academic world.

His new position at the SGC had been his unexpected salvation. No longer a lone scholar, he found support among those whose theories would have damned them also. But, most unexpected of all, was the support he found in his friends and co-workers. Years of reporting in to sneering advisors and grant boards washed over with each briefing. And bit by bit, looking into the clear and encouraging eyes of General Hammond he slowly lost words from that bruised and battered vocabulary.

He had almost forgotten what it was like to love his work, to love his peers, his family. But the inherent trust Hammond placed him did more than he would ever know to restore him.

**4. **

He was everything Daniel hated: aggressive, rude, and disdainful of academics. There was, quite simply no one more capable of completely irritating him, no one who could get under his skin and incense him, more than Jack O'Neill. They had a language totally unto themselves; a back and forth comprised of taunting jabs and scornful silences. One word, a gesture, a look – that was all it took to cause his blood to boil and his temper to flair.

But from the very first time he had laid eyes on him, he knew that he had lost all ability to leave him.

**5. **

His foster father hadn't been tall; Daniel had towered over him early in his teens. He was a tidy man, favouring a short, cropped hairstyle and the cleaner look of contacts. He wasn't terribly imaginative, his job as an accountant lending a frank and straight-forward air to his entire being. He was as different from Daniel's father as it was possible to be.

And yet he was kind, and encouraged Daniel to follow his own dreams. He worked hard to give the young boy a home, one filled with books and paper and love. He could never replace Daniel's father, but then, he had never tried to. And for this, Daniel loved him all the more.


End file.
